I did some research many years ago in my home town. I looked at the 1915 city directory. Back then, there was an asterisk beside all black people and all black-owned business. Over half the places to eat were black-owned. Their places were called "eating houses," meaning private homes that served meals to the public. When I was growing up, there were still a couple of white restaurants in old houses that operated similarly, one of which was Italian.

Most of the grocery stores were black-owned. Back then, there were no supermarkets, just corner stores. Many of those buildings still exist. You can recognize them from their screen doors with advertising on the screen, mainly Merita Bread.

Every single barber shop in town was black. There was also a type of street vegetable vendor called a huckster, and most of them were black. They would load their truck or wagon with vegetables and flowers and park on the main street Saturday morning. Even when I was growing up, there were still hucksters, and there was still one white family who drove their horse and wagon downtown to sell stuff.

My town did have a large percentage of really black free people. Later on, we started getting lighter colored ones coming in from up north. Mixed race people, many with brown or reddish hair.